I am often asked if I practice Lean at home. In my experience true Lean practitioners don’t separate home and work.  They can’t shut it off.  They are trained to find waste and put countermeasures in place to improve the situation.  I am continually teaching my family about Lean so we can make things easier  and better.

I thought I would share one example of Lean from our home. My wife and I are very busy with our 3 kids between the ages of 4 and 8. There are school activities, sports, church activities, scouting, youth hockey association (board members), and parent-teacher association (wife is treasurer).  This is probably like most households with young kids.  It is extremely important that we are organized and have a plan.  We use a central calendar on the fridge to keep track of all our activities.

The calendar is simple but the color coded writing tells a message:

• Black – family meals, we plan out the plan out the entire week on Sunday
• Red – Kid activities or meetings that we need to go to
• Blue – Tasks, things we must due by these dates

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